Developer Let's Play with Q&A - Transcribed [March 19th Stream]

https://imgur.com/E2HzEYZ

This is the fourth dev stream, hosted by Mike Weicker, which originally aired on March 19, 2021. I’ve transcribed the video below, but you can watch it for yourself here. I’ve done my best to capture Mike’s responses as accurately as possible (nearly word for word in most cases), but please consult the video for precise phrasing and/or context.

Currently, these streams take place every Friday at 4pm EST on Twitch. You can check the schedule here to see when it starts in your region.


Q: What about a “Rune of Finality” which has a 100% chance to fracture the item with a 100% chance to successfully complete the craft?

A: Yeah, we’ve actually talked about things like that where it’s just a guarantee, this is the last thing you’re doing but it works no matter what – it seals the item. It’s pretty powerful and it lowers the bar of a perfect item from whatever the highest difficulty is to whatever the second highest difficulty. It’s a pretty binary thing to do so if we did it we’d probably just end up increasing the difficulty of crafting alongside it…which might not be great. But we’ve definitely discussed more Runes and Glyphs along the same vein.
Timestamp: 07:25-08:12

Q: Please implement a mechanic where there’s a unique that will only drop from breaking something in the environment.

A: There’s a part of me that wants to say, ‘who says we haven’t already?’ and just watch everyone go looking for it [laughter]. I promise you there’s not one though. Actually, if there is I don’t know about it. Kyle is hiding things on me all the time.
Timestamp: 08:22-08:45

Q: When can we expect the next big update?

A: I don’t have an exact date for you. We do have quite a large update that we’re working on right now. I would say – I mean, the terrible answer is when it’s ready – but we’ll likely get closer to making that information more known soon.
Timestamp: 09:02-09:30

Q: So happy with the design of the new Spriggan form. Thank you for it.

A: Yeah, we know you’ve been enjoying the Spriggan form so far, but you’d probably love to see the new stuff we’re doing even more. It’s going to have some sweet new interactions and things it can do as well. I’m pretty excited about the new Spriggan form changes, and Werebear form changes too.
Timestamp: 09:50-10:12

Q: Is there a third form coming for Druid?

A: Yes, we are simultaneously working on a third Druid form. It will round out the Druid’s –you’ll have three forms; Spriggan, Werebear, and mystery form…that will be pretty spicy.
Timestamp: 10:52-11:22

Q: Will the requested loot filter improvements be coming in the new update? Such as only showing the item if it has 2 or more T4 or T5 affixes.

A: Yeah, getting more logic into the loot filter is definitely something we want to do. Getting some AND’s, OR’s, connecting rules together, just deepening what you can customize it to do. We put a lot of work into the loot filter a few patches back and there are definitely some weak points that need to be resolve. However, I think we did a really great job with the initial version of it and we will be expanding it. This will very likely not happen in the next patch. The next patch will be focused on quite a few other things that I think you’ll very much enjoy. There was a mini-teaser of one of them last time and that was one of the smallest things we’re doing.
Timestamp: 12:30-13:25

Q: Are there any plans to change monolith modifiers? Instead of having “has chance to dodge” maybe have a mod for “has chance to have double density” this way monolith could also have arena scaling system for people who want the challenge.

A: There’s a few changes to the Monolith coming. We know that there are certain modifiers to encounter on specific builds. For example, if you’re an Aura of Decay Lich you don’t really care about chance to dodge because there’s nothing to dodge…really, but if you’re a Flurry Rogue that needs X number of hits or X number of crit’s or something like that than there’s definitely problems with being forced into taking Echoes that have mods like that. We’re looking at the cause of that more than removing them all together because we do like having elements of the endgame that certain builds are maybe really, really powerful at doing one thing but they have a problem with doing certain other things. That should affect your build decisions. If there were no negative things that could appear in endgame for your build than it’s kind of broken and overpowered.

I would use the example of Hammerdin’s from Diablo 2 as there was almost nothing that was magic immune – there were a couple things though they were very rare. There were characters like Sorceresses that had to pick two elements so that when something immune came along they could deal with and then there’d be doubled immunes so it didn’t matter anyways. There were a disproportionate number of Hammerdin’s that appeared because they were so versatile and could just do any content.

We want to avoid having builds like that where it’s just like ‘here’s my build that does everything perfect and that build that does just a few things perfect is useless because of it’. We’d like things to be good at things and other things be good at other things. Diversity is good.
Timestamp: 13:30-16:06

Q: Will there be mana related mods planned for Monolith in the future? For example, monsters mana leech or mana regen is decreased?

A: Ah, I haven’t seen any directly but that’s a really cool idea so maybe.
Timestamp: 16:10-16:22

Q: Are randomly generated maps still on the menu for LE? Do you have any update on this?

A: Sorry, we don’t have any updates on it right now.
Timestamp: 16:38-16:42

Q: Leeching mana? Please God no, I already can’t play meteor with Focus in its current state!

A: We are looking at mana, mana mods – not specifically the way Focus is though we are looking at Focus as well – but we’re looking at the bigger picture of it. We had a meeting yesterday and at the end of the meeting we talked about the frequent requests we’ve been receiving about looking at Focus – so we looked at it.
Timestamp: 17:30-18:02

Q: What do you think of the Diablo 2 Resurrected announcement? Do you think this game is a competitor to LE?

A: I mean…Diablo 2 is very near and dear to my heart so I’m really excited about it. I think it’s going to be a ton of fun. I think there’s a lot we still don’t know about it, and I’m excited to learn about what or if they’re changing anything…all those sorts of things. Diablo 2’s a great game…it’s a very old game and a lot has changed since then so yeah – we’ll see what happens. I’m really excited for it.
Timestamp: 18:04-18:55

Q: I like that mana matters in LE, but it’s definitely a delicate balance with high mana cost skills.

A: Yes, you’re right and there’s a lot of skills we’re looking at – especially in Sentinel – like high mana cost melee skills that don’t quite feel like they’re worth the mana investment to use them on a regular basis or at least weave them into a build. Like I rarely find that people are using Erasing Strike and like Forge Strike – I know there’s a couple builds out there with that one but it’s definitely less than things like Vengeance, for example, and a lot of that has to do with the defensive capabilities of Vengeance. But yeah, we’re looking at it.
Timestamp: 19:13-20:04

Q: When is wolf minion AI coming to my skellies?

A: Next patch.
Timestamp: 20:05-20:08

Q: There isn’t much we don’t know about D2:R - they won’t change much for release for people to get the same feeling as with D2, so auto group, auto pick up, shared stash, better game search, some bugs corrected and everything else is the same.

A: Yeah, that’s like – I would say we don’t really know until it happens. I was really excited when they said it could be modded.
Timestamp: 20:30-20:54

Q: Are there new supporter packs coming? I would love to support the team, and the current ones aren’t really my thing.

A: We probably won’t be releasing new supporter packs until we get closer to launch or possibly at launch, I think. Thanks for wanting to support us, that’s great…I love it. We are making lots of MTX stuff in the background – we have a separate pipeline for that – so at launch, we will be releasing some MTX stuff for sure. We really want the Early Access experience to be about getting the game and the mechanics right first. We like to focus on the hard mechanics while we’re still able to change things relatively quickly, and feel there’s a little more flexibility while still in Early Access.
Timestamp: 20:58-22:07

Q: What are the summoner classes? Is it possible to go full summons like in PoE/D2?

A: Yeah, for sure. There are two primary summoner classes – every class actually has some sort of summon. The primary summoning classes are Beastmaster and Necromancer. The Necromancer is a Mastery class of the Acolyte – so you’re summoning skeletons, gone golems, wraiths, things like that…undead creatures of all sorts. The Beastmaster is a Mastery class of the Primalist is all about nature summons – so you got raptor, scorpion, bear, sabretooth, and wolf. There’s also Shaman, which I call a summon class – to some degree, that focusing a little bit on totems. So yeah, there are a lot of summoning classes and you can go pure summoning though it’s not fantastic, a lot of the time, to go completely pure summoning because you only have five skill slots on your bar you generally want a little bit of…a little bit of something else [laughs].
Timestamp: 22:14-23:40

Q: Warlock Mastery when?

A: Soon….ish. Not like soon, soon but you know, we’re working on it. All the Masteries we’re working on…they’ll be here when they’re ready. They will not be here next patch, I can tell you that because they’re not ready yet [laughs].
Timestamp: 23:50-24:14

Q: Will the old transformation forms ever become MTX in future for nostalgia purchase?

A: I hadn’t thought about that, but that’s a cool idea. I mean, if someone really wants to be the old one. The only downside is that the new one is significantly nicer quality so it’s harder to put lower quality things as a purchasable option in the game. So…maybe, we’ll see.
Timestamp: 24:22-24:49

Q: Is controller support important to you?

A: Yes, controller support is very important to us. Since day one we’ve had some sort of controller support available and we do continue to work on that. We’re doing a bunch of UI updates right now and there was a post teasing it just after my stream last week. One thing that some of the posts may show – I don’t know which screenshots are being used for it – but pretty well all of the panels are being designed such that controller functionality within those panels will be a lot better. While we’re making them we’re also looking at how someone would navigate this with a controller that doesn’t need a mouse cursor on the screen. So we’re looking at – so if you’re cycling through your specializations on the Skills & Specializations screen maybe it’s triggers that’s used…and stuff like that.
Timestamp: 24:52-26:05

Q: Will you have customizable UI options?

A: Customizable UI is really cool. Things like WoW, I had a very different UI from the base UI. It’s a lot to do to make the UI – there’s a lot of individual UI panels and having them all layout nicely so that when like someone comes to a stream, or something like that, but still be customizable is a very, very difficult and in-depth thing to do. We’re not ready to do that yet. I know a lot of people would like it because there’s people like, ‘oh, I need to have my buffs at this point because I’m just used to having my buffs there’. I definitely get the need or the want for that, but we’re just not ready to do it yet. Sorry.
Timestamp: 26:28-27:38

Q: What about a grid based customization system?

A: Yeah, like having certain spots where things can go and you can flip between them so you can have different layout options…for sure. We’re going to get one really good one right first before we look at that. A lot of things that come up like that are really interesting and enticing ideas that we’d love to do, but it really comes back to scope. We’re making a really big game here and having it not become too big is important. Unless something is real quick and easy to slap in and if it’s not already on the list to go in it’s probably not going to be added in [laughs].
Timestamp: 27:43-28:30

Q: How much of a focus will Runemaster and Falconer have with minion building?

A: I don’t want to go too far in-depth on them without giving away what they are specifically, but I wouldn’t call either of them a primary minion class in the sense that Beastmaster and Necromancer are.
Timestamp: 28:36-29:00

Q: Will the classes be gender locked?

A: So I answered a question last week about this, but it’s the same thing as one of the one’s I just answered as well…it comes down to scope. For launch the classes will be gender locked. There is a lot of things that go into making a new gender for a class. All the voice acting has to be done twice – I know there’s not a ton in yet but there’s some that isn’t actually put in yet that’s done and doing it all a second time…also if there’s ever – like there’s a ton of little things that have to be done. It’s not as simple as slap another model on there and it’s good to go. Animations have to be re-thought out, the armour has to be remade for that other gender as well – and a lot of that takes quite a long time to do. Unfortunately, for 1.0 there will be a single character for each class to play. After that we may look at opening it up and if we do open it up the character customizations could possibly go beyond just gender…who knows – all sorts of stuff could happen.
Timestamp: 29:08-30:30

Q: What are the major goals of Cycles (Leagues/Seasons) for Last Epoch?

A: I would say the major goals are to keep the fresh and interesting, to provide new challenges, and to include interesting new options. So a way to expand the storyline, a way to bring content patches in a theme all at once – like having an update that maybe comes with a new endgame system, or maybe a new chapter, or things like that. So we’re just looking at expanding the game and having it stay fresh and fun. We’ll always be looking at adding in new balancing – so a new zone gets added in and balance needs to change, new character get added and balance needs to change, all those sorts of things. It also just gives a way to reset the economy. Personally, I just loved that first little bit when everyone is hyped about finding…a crappy Falcon, or a Chimaera’s Essence [using LE items as examples] – you know, like finding just a basic item is just suddenly cool again because there’s nothing there and that economy reset is always a fun time to play. Those ladder reset parties you get in – like who can get to 50 first, who can get to 80 first, you can get to 100 first. All this sort of stuff.

One of the biggest goals of cycles – and seasons, ladder reset, all that sort of stuff – is inspiring the community to have fun and make new and interesting builds.
Timestamp: 30:36-32:40

Q: Do you have any plans for a “non-story mode” leveling process or boost to endgame once you’ve completed it once?

A: Ah, we’ve talked about it. It’s another one of those things that we hadn’t really planned for initially. It might be a post 1.0 feature, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a 1.0 feature at the moment. It might be, but for now it’s just going to be the story. I understand that the story can get a little repetitive, but in any game system like this it can get repetitive. I think that there’s more interesting stuff that’s going to keep coming out of the storyline. Going through it as a different character does act as a bit of a tutorial, at least for the first little bit when you’re trying out a new character – though I know there’s some of you that have played all of them already.
Timestamp: 32:45-33:42

Q: Any plans to support modding like Steam workshop? (Thinking of something like Grim Dawn)

A: No, not at the moment. It doesn’t mean it will never happen, but it’s not something we are looking at right now.
Timestamp: 33:45-33:55

Q: Softcore and Hardcore game modes will be on the same patches or will be balanced differently?

A: They will always be balanced the same. We want softcore, hardcore, SSF, all those things to be a single game. We do take hardcore into account when we’re making balance changes, for sure. Even something as simple as making a new node or making a new item – sometimes we can’t put that [that meaning a hypothetical skill node or item] in the game because it would become absolutely mandatory for hardcore. Or we should really put this in the game because someone in hardcore is really going to like it. I think cheat-death mechanics are a good example of things we’ve added or removed based on hardcore considerations – or modified slightly – because if there were a reliable cheat-death mechanic everyone would just take it, including softcore players. Maybe that’s not the best example [laughs].
Timestamp: 34:00-35:02

Q: Do you thing hard to play builds and 1-bottom builds should have an equal ceiling of power?

A: That’s really tough to answer. I’d hope that they wouldn’t have quite an equal ceiling of power…I think. Most builds should have relatively equally ceilings of power. If there’s any build that’s really good with pressing just one button on your entire bar then I think we’ve kind of done something a little bit wrong – not completely. I would classify a build with four minions and Swipe with never pressing any of the four minions’ activated abilities as a one button build, but if you’re pressing their activated abilities then it’s not really a one button build anymore. I know some people like to relax with games like this, just have fun, and it’s not really about min/maxing or getting everything perfect – I definitely have builds like that too for myself [laughs]. Though, I think if you’re really going to put the focus and energy into optimizing your own efficiency and gameplay then you should be rewarded for that – at least a little bit. I’m sure that with the most GG/OP items even a one button build will be able to do pretty darn well.
Timestamp: 35:07-36:54

Q: What is your stance on affix shard vacuum?

A: I love it. I was one of the people that worked on it, it was great. I didn’t think it was a very controversial topic…is it?
Timestamp: 37:12-37:38

Q: I think it’s only controversial insofar as some players would prefer auto pickup instead.

A: Okay, I see what you’re saying…so the difference between having the vacuum and just walk over anything and it auto happens. It’s really easy – I’ve said this before – to add quality of life improvements, like that, to the game and I’m sort of using it as a QoL example. I don’t know if it’s actually a ‘quality improvement’ [laughs]. It’s really easy to add conveniences to the game, and it’s really hard to take them away – even in an Early Access state. We’re definitely at a point – because we’re in Early Access – I’d feel more comfortable taking something like that away, but I know people would not be very happy about it…if we took it away [laughs]. There’s enough people playing now that we can’t really do that without first putting a lot of thought into it. We are cautious with adding things like that. Having items of that nature having weight to them is important – like having intention to pick up the item – and then taking note of what you got…I think is an important thing.

Having it be an auto-vacuum there would be a lot less intentionality behind it, and it would make seeing what you’re getting less obvious. I think there’d be more times where you’d go back to your crafting window and be like, ‘oh I’m trying to craft and oh my god I have shard I’ve been looking for, I didn’t even know I picked it up.’ I think moments like that – where you don’t even know you picked it up – aren’t really great. This is part of the reason why shards go to your inventory and you have to send them to your crafting window which also displays what shards were sent. That’s why there’s things like that there. I say it every time…things could change, who knows. I understand that a lot of people find it frustrating to have to pick it up and do it every time, but that’s where it is right now. I do think that it helps a lot when there’s a clump together and you can pick one up and you get them all. I think that’s really good because you’re still getting that intentionality of I’m going to pick up an item – so you still have that ‘I did this intentionally’.
Timestamp: 38:26-40:54

Q: Are you guys improving the critical strike chance calculation system? it looks hard to understand when you add 50% chance with an item and it raises 1-2 points on the character screen.

A: I think what that is – is like 50% increased critical strike chance compared to 50% added critical strike chance. I don’t see us changing that anytime soon because I’m pretty happy with the way that it works right now. Though, I could be wrong…someone [other dev in the comments] tell me if I’m wrong about that assumption.
Timestamp: 37:40-38:20

Q: What are your thoughts on the discrepancy between health leech and other healing methods like skills/health regen? It seems insane that I’m leeching 2k health/sec or could take 1 sec to cast a spell that heals me for 100 health or with a ton of investment only getting 180 health/sec regen. I feel like the current leech rates just pushes that 1-shot feeling.

A: Yeah, healing spells are really tough to balance especially when there’s a multiplayer environment. Being able to heal other people is a very powerful ability in a multiplayer game so a little bit of its power is taken into account – even though it is still single player right now. So there is a little bit of that – where a little bit of the power is in the fact that you can cast it on other people still. There’s a little bit of discrepancy there – sorry, the discrepancy I was talking about was the discrepancy between health leech and healing spells in that health leech you can stack up to be very effective. Health leech also scales with your damage and your damage is scaled against enemy health and then enemy damage is scaled against your health so your healing kind of needs to be scaled against enemy damage…which the numbers – the numbers are always weird – because as soon as you get into higher and higher content damage has to get higher to make the content more challenging.
Timestamp: 41:15-42:30

Q: It seems like people usually choose ‘normal’ items over sets / uniques, since normal items are so strong. Have you all considered a system outside of equipment for these effects / set bonuses instead? So that you could have optimal gear equipped while still taking advantage of unique effects and bonuses via a different method or system in the game.

A: Umm…there’s, we have – idols. Idols is the answer to that question, really. So we’ve put some effects on idols that are unique effects – and there’s more to come with idols too…don’t worry, that system is not finished. Idols are a big part of that, yes, and also because you can’t craft idols so it’s a little bit different. I think that the core of that problem is more about making unique effects and set effects proportionally powerful to the items in which they’re competing against, and getting that balance in a better spot. I think it’s better than it was two patches ago – even one patch ago – but it’s still not perfect. We will continue to work on that for sure.
Timestamp: 42:32-43:50

Q: So will idols potentially get pretty whacky / build defining later on?

A: I would argue that there is already some build defining idols out there. But, I mean, there’s definitely room in that system to grow.
Timestamp: 43:58-44:12

Q: What’s Eleventh Hour’s MTX strategy? Will MTX be accessible at all via playing the game? Will there be a transmog system?

A: We are planning a – ah, it’s not fully built yet so I don’t want to say what we’re planning just in case it doesn’t work out right, really. We do want the MTX system to feel good and not feel – we don’t want people to feel forced into buying any of the MTX – but we do want people to feel like they are getting good value when they do buy something. You’re buying extra stuff, that’s great…we’re very happy with that. We want it to feel exciting and cool, and be able to show off to your friends what you got, and that sort of stuff.

We are also trying to make gear and items that you find in-game to also look cool. We don’t want you to look like you’re just walking around in rags or something because you couldn’t fork out the extra money. There’s a balance between being able to find cool stuff and that MTX system. That is a delicate balance for sure.

Sometimes there are really cool items in the game that you want to look like but it just doesn’t fit your build at all. It is important, I think – there’s an interesting thing here in the decision of what gear you wear…how it looks being a part of that decision isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I don’t think. But having the flexibility to make your character look the way you want it to look is a very powerful thing to have in a game like this. I hope that gives you some insight into our thoughts on the process. I know I didn’t really give away any really concrete information – I’m sorry about that.
Timestamp: 44:20-46:35

Q: What about skin transfers or being able to turn items into cosmetics?

A: Yeah, that’s kind of what I was talking about being able to look the way you want with the gear you’ve found. I think it’s a valuable thing so there’s a possibility that we see that.
Timestamp: 48:20-48:31

Q: What is your stance on loot boxes?

A: [I’d suggest just watching the video for proper context.]
Timestamp: 46:38-48:08 & 48:32-48:54

Q: No problem. My biggest concern aligning with that question is that I don’t want Last Epoch to be quite as exploitative as something like Path of Exile – especially since we’re already paying for the game.

A: That’s a very good point and I think a good example of that is – with paying for MTX and having a price tag on the game already – things like, for example, stash tabs have no real money MTX in our game…they are an in-game purchasable thing. In Path of Exile it is something you pay real money for. I think that’s a big difference – in the fact that they [PoE] doesn’t have a price tag initially and we do. So things like that are the reason why we didn’t put a price tag on stash tabs, because you are buying the game already.
Timestamp: 49:02-49:50

Q: Will you introduce more real stun immunity for all classes? Similar to Warpath and the Mage’s huge idols.

A: Ahh, maybe. I think stun immunity needs to come at an opportunity cost – either you’re giving up damage, or mobility, or some other utility, or you’re giving up something else…to have stun immunity. I think that would be appropriate.
Timestamp: 50:00-50:42

Q: Do you believe a game company trying to make a long lasting online game, such as LE or PoE, is able to survive on initial sales or do you think multiple sources of income is important to survive?

A: I think multiple sources of income would speed up a lot of processes – like being able to hire more people so we can do things faster. Having multiple sources of income would make being able to get things in the game faster. However, I don’t think it would determine our long-term survivability. But we get a lot more really cool art if we have more income [laughs] – a lot of really cool art. Basically everything just goes right back into the game – it’s how we make the game more awesome. All of us that are working on it – it’s the most important thing to us…just making an awesome game. Just about every major decision we’ve made from day one is ‘what’s the best thing to make this game awesome?’ It’s how do we get this game to the most people as possible, in the best state as possible, as quickly as possible.
Timestamp: 51:15-52:50

Q: Are you guys aware of Druid summons that get stuck behind with mobs that you ignored and also vanishing and locking the skill on some maps?

A: Yeah, there’s some updates to all summons coming soon.
Timestamp: 53:32-54:00

Q: Any teasers for Falconer?

A: I got nothing for you, I’m sorry. It’s going to be awesome, it’s going to be like no other pet style skill, it’s going to be unique, it’s really cool – I know I’m not doing anything to help the anticipation for it [laughs]. In the state it is currently, it is nothing like any other pet skill in the game.
Timestamp: 55:02-55:38

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Continued...


Q: Are you surprised you have players with over 3,000 hours already?

A: Yeah, I am [laughs]. I’m ecstatic that we have players with over 3,000 hours already. That someone finds enough fun in this game that they’re willing to spend 3,000 hours in it is so awesome. So anyone that’s spent 3,000 or more hours in this game…thank you, you’re fantastic!
Timestamp: 55:45-56:08

Q: Will Arena have more functions/stuff added on? Checkpoints/modifiers/etc (like Grim Dawn’s Crucible).

A: There’s definitely some things we’ve talked about with the Arena, and sort of an endless system like that and what we can do to expand upon it. I know I’ve said this before – it was originally designed as a temporary feature that wasn’t in any of the initial literature that we designed for the game. It was really just a tacked on thing for the Kickstarter, and it’s grown quite a lot since then…and it’ll probably continue to grow for sure. It’s a great system – it’s a little on the linear side I guess, but I still find it fun.
Timestamp: 56:32-57:23

Q: Any news on multiplayer?

A: It’s coming along. We’re working hard on it. It’s feeling great.
Timestamp: 57:25-57:30

Q: Are there plans for more procedurally generated content? It would be nice if some of the story was like that.

A: There’s a lot of pro’s and con’s to procedurally generated content from a design perspective, and right now we’re sticking with the hand-built content. The Monolith system – its’ got fixed levels and as we add more and more levels to it, I think, feels a little bit better. I’m going to use Diablo 2 as an example here. There’s only a few versions of some maps and even those that are procedurally generated you still start to learn the layouts a little bit – where you’re like, ‘oh the wavepoint was here so it’s going to be to the west’ or something like that. As long as there’s enough options that can show up I think it’s still a positive experience overall. Though, I understand what you mean about having more of that. I think having some procedurally generated zones would be a very positive addition to the game, and we’re still looking at how best to make that happen. We don’t have it yet.
Timestamp: 57:40-59:05

Q: Could you do something like the lab system from PoE for Arena, where everyone gets the same random seed each day?

A: That’s actually a really interesting example, and we’ve talked about things like that – where it’s the same for everyone for a given period of time. That does solve a lot of the problems that there are with procedurally generated systems, actually – if everyone already has that seed information ready to go. We haven’t put anything in like that yet.
Timestamp: 59:16-59:45

Q: I’m afraid multiplayer will have fps issues. Some builds already have some heavy FPS consumers.

A: Yes, we’ve got a really great auto-pooling system coming that’s been going great through internal testing right now that should alleviate the vast majority of those concerns. It will provide a substantial improvement to FPS for everyone, and really big impacts for people who are playing builds like Avalanche, for example, or any of those builds that have a multitude of things that get cast really quickly.
Timestamp: 59:52-1:00:35

Q: How did you all settle on the armour formula?

A: The armour formula was designed by Trasochi, and he’s been the brains behind that for a while now. I could ask him and find out for next time, but I don’t know how he came up with it. Probably just from a vast knowledge of game systems and being really smart.
Timestamp: 1:00:42-1:01:15

Q: I’m really enjoying Primalist, but my game freezes for about 10 secs the 1st time I use Entangling Roots in a game session ever since the last patch. Is this a graphic loading issue?

A: I’m not sure what the issue is, but if it is what I think it is then the system I was just talking about should fix it.
Timestamp: 1:01:18-1:01:42

Q: Do you want all characters to build endurance/hp like they all do now?

A: I don’t think it should be a mandatory thing for all characters to build. Ideally we’d like – in a perfect world – there’s primary defenses and secondary defenses. I would say that most builds – apart from very niche ones that don’t do this for specific reasons…I’ll put that caveat in there for basically everything I’m about to say – most builds should be investing in most primary defenses stats. Primary defensive stats are things like resistances, that’s a primary defensive stat. So basically all high level characters should be capping their resistances. Things that are secondary defenses are things that are in the ‘additional defenses’ category here [has character stat sheet open] – so block armour, stun avoidance, block effectiveness, dodge, ward retention & generation.

I think endurance is in a mid-range spot between the two. Health, ward, and endurance are sort of the three main types of defense that you have directly acting on your health globe – in basically all scenarios. It’s good that health is something that all characters are going for – the fact that most characters have health as a good thing to pick up, I think is a positive thing. I don’t know if stacking endurance is really something that every character should be doing. I think endurance is heavily more thematically biased towards Primalist and Sentinel, the same way ward is more biased towards Acolyte and Mage. I mean, there’s a Primalist build that uses ward pretty heavily…which is great [laughs]. Though, I think most Primalist’s focusing on endurance instead of ward would be a really good thing, and most Mage’s focusing on ward instead of endurance would be a really good thing. Endurance is pretty new still so we’ll continue to tweak it and make changes to it. I think overall it’s really positive so personally I’m really happy with it.
Timestamp: 1:02:00-1:04:18

Q: Are there any plans to change how ward retention works or buff ward retention?

A: The basic ward retention mechanic is likely not to change very much. We’re pretty happy with it overall. The exact balance of it…I’m sure it’ll change a ton – little bits here and there for a very long time.
Timestamp: 1:04:30-1:04:50

Q: Any plans for an “adventure” mode type leveling system after beating the campaign once?

A: I talked about this a little bit earlier. Short answer is; at the moment no, but maybe at some point.
Timestamp: 1:05:00-1:05:07

Q: Is the in-game Game Guide going to be expanded on at all? It’s great compared to other games in the genre, but I’m still finding myself needing to Google things ever so often for more specific mechanics and interactions.

A: Absolutely. I agree, the Game Guide is pretty sweet but it’s not complete. We do plan on improving it and expanding it as time goes on. It’s the sort of thing that’s a living document – as they’d say. Every time we make a major change things get added to it, things get removed from it, and I hope one day it is as useful as going to a wikipedia page for the game is – it’s got all the info you need. We do try to reduce peoples need to have a second monitor open with a list of all the armour that’s in the game, a list of how certain mechanics work, and stuff like that. Having the discussions in chat be like, ‘what do people think about this build’ or ‘has anyone tried making this work’ or ‘who’s your favourite whatever’ instead of just ‘can someone explain how endurance works to me’. So keeping the chat systems more engaging as well by having that information be disseminated easier and quickly.
Timestamp: 1:07:00-1:08:32

Q: Are you doing anything to bring the speedrunning community to the game?

A: I love speedruns. Speedruuning is one of my favourite things to just sit down and watch for a while – put up on another monitor and listen to a speedrun happening for like eight hours. I absolutely love speedruns. I know there’s a few people that have done some speedrunning stuff with our game already. We’ve done a couple race events, which I think are a ton of fun, and we will definitely be having more race events. So the short answer is yes. Do I know what that looks like right now? No.
Timestamp: 1:08:36-1:09:12

Q: Define legendaries in one word.

A: Umm…awesome. Ah, one words real hard [laughs].
Timestamp: 1:09:16-1:09:28

Q: Is anything planned for magic find and group play affecting it as well as mob density after multiplayer?

A: There’s two major pitfalls with magic find; having a situation where you’re sacrificing damage or survivability for magic find. Making that trade-off is something we’ve really avoided thus far. In the Blessings system, for example, there are no Blessings that have both power and magic find in the same category. So the category will be either a magic find category or a power category.

You’re asking about multiplayer – so having it in a situation where people feel like they’re forced to play multiplayer to get gear quick enough or just get any gear at all is not ideal. Making that feeling of being forced into multiplayer or having those boosts of magic find for being in a group is a tricky situation…I’m not going to say it’s the worst thing in the world, but I don’t necessarily think it’s a positive situation. So yeah, I don’t think we’re planning on it right now…but things could change.
Timestamp: 1:09:30-1:11:32

Q: Auction house; Yea or Nay?

A: May? I’d say a regular auction house like how you’re thinking about it; Nay.
Timestamp: 1:11:42-1:11:50

Q: Do you plan to add boundary hopping to the game for all movement abilities, where it makes sense? For instance, jumping down from the top deck of that ship to the bottom deck (assuming the distance of the movement ability is long enough to reach the other side). I guess it could conflict with map design.

A: Yep, you’ve got the exact answer. Probably map design problems.
Timestamp: 1:11:52-1:12:12

Q: How long is the beta going to last?

A: Until 1.0 is ready [laughs]. Unfortunately, that’s all I’ve got for you.
Timestamp: 1:12:14-1:12:20

Q: Have you thought about making a corpses build viable for some masteries?

A: I’m not sure what that means. A corpses build – is that like a corpse explosion?
Timestamp: 1:12:24-1:12:35

Q: Anything planned with itemization similar to how runewords provide cross-class skills? For example, classes having access to teleport.

A: Yeah, we do have more itemization things planned for the game. I don’t really want to say exactly what all those are because it’ll come at a later date [laughs]. Yes, there’s definitely things we’ve got planned that will deepen itemization. I do think that cross class skills can be very interesting. With our skill speicalizations system – here’s the big problem – so you’ve got an item that gives you, let’s say, Teleport. So you’ve got this armour – that no one knows how it’s made, it probably shouldn’t exist – that has +1 to Teleport on it. So you can teleport now. Now do we give you access to the skill tree for Teleport? If not, then you’ve now got a sixth skill you want to use but only five slots on your bar.

If we do give you access to the tree – one of the really big things about how all of our trees are designed is that they’re designed in context of their own class and the passive tree you have access to – so suddenly every time we do a cross class skill you can specialize in we have to all of a sudden change all of the mechanics for it to work with the other Mastery tree and not have any weird interactions that are going to break things. That creates a lot of things that we’d have to check for so that they don’t conflict. By putting the constraint that the skill only really lives on one class we have more freedom to design inside of that skill. So there might suddenly be something that we couldn’t put on the Teleport tree anymore because maybe that node is suddenly broken when used on a Primalist. Now Sorcerer’s all lose access to this node that they liked because Primalist can also access their skill.

So probably not – I’d say is the short answer to that long winded answer.
Timestamp: 1:12:48-1:15:45

Q: What is your favourite brand of pickles?

A: Great question, I’m glad you asked. If I’m buying store bought pickles I usually go for Vlasic, but one of my buddies makes pickles and they’re much better so those are my favourite.
Timestamp: 1:15:55-1:16:14

Q: I’m really curious about the trade system because it’s a major mechanic for me, and for most people I believe. An auction house would be a good quality of life, but maybe put some mechanics in to stop flippers and abusers, like some tax after trade, etc.

A: The details of the trade system are still in flux because they interact so heavily with multiplayer and we don’t have enough people testing multiplayer yet to nail down what trade system is too efficient, not efficient enough, all these sorts of things. So we’re still working out the details of the trade system and exactly what it’s going to be. I do think there are negatives to having a completely free market, and I think there’s also negatives to having a completely open auction house system. We are keeping all those things in mind when we’re building the trade system. We’ve also played all the other ARPG’s and have seen the good and bad things that have happened in their trade systems. If there’s hopes that we won’t make the same mistakes as some other thing…than likely we won’t. Sorry, I don’t have any hard details on it yet for you.
Timestamp: 1:16:24-1:17:37

Q: Do you guys ever communicate with GGG, even if it’s just for banter?

A: I’ve talked once with someone who worked there…it was great. It was quite a while ago now. I’m not sure if anyone else on the team talks to them or not. They were extremely friendly towards us, and I had a ton of fun on the call. So if you’re listening – thanks, it was great.
Timestamp: 1:19:50-1:20:18

Q: Any plans on differentiating which side quests give idol slots/ passive points and which don’t? Something like PoE’s passives.

A: Yes, there are awesome things coming for the quest system in general. I’ve spent the last two weeks or so working on some updates to several UI panels – one of which is the quest system. It’s much clearer what you’re getting from the quests now, and I think it’s significantly better.
Timestamp: 1:21:25-1:22:04

Q: Are you surprised by the amount of interest LE has within the PoE content creation scene? There’s not many beta/indie games that get this much support usually.

A: Yeah, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised by how much support we’ve gotten…from everyone really. When we started this project I can’t say I ever expected there to be this much support this early. It’s really fantastic to see people enjoying our game. Every time I see a Reddit post, or someone on Discord, or our forums, or everywhere like that – that says ‘I’m having fun playing your game’ – it feels great! That’s the best part about it, when someone just says ‘I’m having fun playing your game’…that’s awesome.
Timestamp: 1:22:20-1:23:19

Q: Any updates on multiplayer?

A: It is coming along very nicely. We’re not stuck behind any roadblocks right now, which is a great feeling.
Timestamp: 1:23:52-1:24:00

Mike shares a small spoiler:

I can say – here’s a spoiler – gold shrines have had their gold increased…a lot. It’s a triple digit number I think.
Timestamp: 1:24:42-1:24:52

Mike shares a more significant spoiler, a new Passives panel:

https://imgur.com/A3GkveI

I have a little teaser I can spoil for you. I’m going to open up my passive panel. Oh, my passive panel looks really weird. Look what’s going on with this passive panel. I don’t know what they did with it. It looks not quite finished yet [laughs]. Yeah, this is a sneak peek at our new Passives panel that’s coming up. We decided that the side panel didn’t offer enough space for it. Since we first made it we’ve been cramped trying to fit everything in place so it’s coming to a center screen panel. You’re going to distribute passive points from left to right instead of bottom to top. Not a lot of the basic functionality is changing here – it’s basically the same stuff. It’s just going to be laid out a little more clear, there’s less stuff that overlaps each other – let me bring my passive panel up right here [opens current Passives panel] – with the Beastmaster one you can see the top half of it is hidden because I don’t have it unlocked [Beastmaster is not Mike’s chosen Mastery], but Shaman it doesn’t hide the top half of the screen [because Shaman is Mike’s chosen Mastery] so nowhere, apart from hovering over a tooltip, does it actually tell me the bonuses that a Shaman gets. So by bringing that information over here to the left hand side [of the new Passives panel] you can always see it. It’s hopefully going to be a little more clear now.

This is only concept art so that panel isn’t actually done or in game yet – so it might change a little bit, but I don’t think it’ll change much. We’re very happy with it. Shout out to UI design.
Timestamp: 1:25:07-1:27:28

Q: Any new endgame coming with the next patch?

A: There’s not like a fully complete new endgame system coming next patch. There won’t be a new option of styles of endgame…if that makes any sense. So the endgame options will still be Monolith or Arena, but there is new endgame stuff coming next patch. Yes stuff [laughs]. There’s always new endgame stuff coming so I don’t really spoil much.

A big focus of our content in general right now is endgame content.
Timestamp: 1:27:32-1:28:41

Q: On a scale of 1-10, how much does the endgame stuff change next patch?

A: Ah, that’s so hard because it’s so subjective [laughs] – like how big of a change something is really. I’m going to put it at like a 6? I don’t want to overhype it. I think it’s a pretty sweet change. I was working on it this morning – the prototype panel is ready to go.
Timestamp: 1:29:12-1:29:44

Q: Follow-up question: Compared to this patch?

A: More than this patch was. We didn’t do a ton – actually we did quite a bit; we added three new timelines, we made all the timelines able to be Empowered, and added around seven more zones…there’s a fair bit there. Maybe a pretty similar amount, but it’s different.
Timestamp: 1:30:10-1:30:40

Q: One thing I have noticed is that a lot of the weapon attacks have a very sharp sound which, especially for builds with fast attacks, gets a bit grating over time. Any plans to take a pass at the audio for weapon hits?

A: Audio in general – sound effects – are always getting worked on. If there’s specific ones that you’d like us to look at I’d suggest submitting a request on the official forums, and then that’ll end up getting to the right people.

Yeah, there’s so many sounds in the game that, I’ll be honest, it’s hard to keep track of all of them in every single scenario. So like, as you mentioned, with lower attack speed it sounds very different when compared to higher attack speed.
Timestamp: 1:31:50-1:32:42

Q: Will there be a penalty for when you die?

A: We definitely are a little bit more lax on things like death penalties during Early Access. I think if we have a death penalty it will probably come into effect close to or around launch. Currently, there is some kind of death penalty – like you got to walk back so there’s time lost there. Personally I did like Diablo 2’s gold and experience lose. They didn’t really have gold as a real currency – it kind of was, but let’s be honest it was very rarely anything of note. The experience cost I do think is a viable penalty…that we might see, who knows.
Timestamp: 1:34:15-1:35:08

Q: Will there be more minion skills soon?

A: Yeah, there are more minion skills on the way. I know of at least two more that will appear before launch. Yes, definitely at least two more before launch [laughs].
Timestamp: 1:41:02-1:41:20

Q: Is visual clarity on the screen a high priority for you guys?

A: Yes, definitely. And as I say that I walk into a large attack. It wasn’t ironic at all [laughs]. Yes it is, and there are definitely some attacks that aren’t telegraphed well enough. I think that breath attack is one of them [laughter].
Timestamp: 1:42:30-1:42:48

Q: Is four person Arena ladder planned?

A: Yeah. I think the ladder is one of the best forms of community participation we have. The ladder does a great job of allowing you to compete with others. Playing with your friends to get high on the ladder there’s that element of cooperation and coordination that comes into play that I think is really cool. I was a big WoW raider and one of the big parts about it was that coordination aspect. That aspect of collaboration and coordination I think really helps build friendships, relationships…you know.

“Because there’s tall ships and small ships but the best ships are friendships.”

That’s for my buddy Gus, who I think might be watching. Who I’m sure just slapped his forehead and groaned, as everyone else did [laughs].
Timestamp: 1:42:52-1:44:12

Q: When balancing classes, do you consider the leveling time?

A: Definitely. We look at how it feels to play a class at different levels. A lot of that is the determination on when skills unlock. The leveling experience is definitely important and speed is involved in that. We want to avoid the scenario where people are like ‘here’s a leveling build’ and ‘here’s an endgame build’ – like where you get to endgame and you just flip the build. That’s not a great experience, especially when someone’s new to the game and they’re coming in and see a guide say, ‘oh here’s how you level; respect at level 35 to this, respect at level 72 to this’. I don’t think that’s fantastic. Though, I’m sure it’ll happen. Probably unavoidable in a lot of scenarios.
Timestamp: 1:44:14-1:45:25

Q: How do you intend to balance the game being easy enough for players who want an easy game and difficult enough to hold people’s attention? I’ve seen many posts about the game being too hard, and many other posts about people being far into monolith and the game being too easy.

A: So I think that does come down to depth and the tail on endgame systems. In a good scenario would be where the endgame systems – I’ll use the Monolith for example – the first few timelines everyone can just do with any build they want and it’s relatively easy and it’s an introduction to the system. Then the later timelines – the Empowered timelines, things like that, and any other secrets that may be found therein – are really going to be reserved for people who want to put the time in and want to learn the systems deeply. I don’t think we’re quite at the right difficulty curve yet. That’s something that we are working on, for sure.
Timestamp: 1:46:50-1:48:02

Q: What is the biggest thing that you think the game is lacking currently?

A: That’s a really tough thing to answer. I would say – I mean multiplayer is the easy answer – I think, as far as content or things in the game like individual systems and things like that, a new endgame system or something to augment the endgame play and a little more depth in the endgame systems that we do have. Those are the biggest things that would take us from it’s good to it’s great.
Timestamp: 1:48:22-1:48:58

Q: Follow-up Question: Like an uber endgame system?

A: Yeah, like the Pandemonium Event, like Uber Elder…depending on what uber you’re talking about. Anyone whose fought Diablo Clone back in the day the first time you saw it happen I’m sure you died immediately unless you were very prepared for it [laughs]. I definitely remember the first time it happened to me; I was on my way to get my Hellforge and it spawned in the most appropriate place ever…it was fantastic.
Timestamp: 1:49:04-1:49:48

Q: Will there be a trading economy or something?

A: Yes, we’re still working out the details of that trading economy system. Personally I really believe that a good trading system can really encourage a healthy community and can bring players together. One of the really important things about a healthy trading system and economy is that most of it happens –hopefully all of it happens – inside the game client itself, and hopefully it’s not just ‘open window, type in name of item I want, click buy…done’. In the real world – and lets pretend Amazon doesn’t exist and you’re in a world like this without the internet – if you want to buy something specific you’ve got to go find the person who has it, right? And I think adding some element of that to a system is a positive.
Timestamp: 1:49:54-1:51:08

4 Likes

Overtime: Questions answered in chat by the Developers


Q: Does Last Epoch have controller support? If so, how’s the customization? I’m asking since I have a condition that leaves me with lowered functionality in my hands and using a controller is the only realistic way for me to play videogames.

A: It does! And it’s getting better. I’m the game director and I actually have terrible RSI due to playing ARPGs so intensely for so many years so controller support is near and dear. Currently, it has basic control mapping, but if you look at for some of the teasers we’re putting out for the myriad of UI updates you’ll notice a much larger emphasis on controller support. I actually almost exclusively play with a controller right now.

Q: In the post about bosses, Sarno mentioned the patch being delayed a couple of weeks. Are we thinking a couple is like 2 weeks? Or more?

A: Yea… around 4 weeks or, give or take a week, longer than usual is likely what we’re looking at.

Q: Is there an option to turn off the on screen damage numbers?

A: Yes!

Q: Will polar bear (white bear) be a thing with the new Werebear?

A: Yeah, I think we’re keeping the unique that gives you a white bear.

Q: Having a pure summoner option is a big deal for me. I hope that’s both possible and viable.

A: It is indeed already possible and viable.

Q: Will the classes be gender locked?

A: New gender = new gear models, new animations, new voice acting, new intro videos, etc, etc. We’d love to and maybe in the future but not for now with the size of the studio.

Q: Will you guys work more on visual equipment customization according to the equipped item?

A: Yeah, many more 3d art for gear coming.

Q: Hey, a design question. Do games create separate model for each armor piece or it is possible to add the armor on top of the character model like a texture mapping?

A: All the gear is modeled and skinned separately so it can’t just be slapped on any model.

Q: Hopefully wolf and sabertooth get smarter.

A: Wolves are actually the smartest currently. Other minions will get similar AI upgrades.

Q: My wolves and sabertooth like to spawn in at the pad vs come thru the portal with me…and they bring everything they aggro with them lol.

A: Ah, yes that is something different to AI, but yes we’re working on fixing that too.

Q: How many and How big is the Falcon going to be?

A: One falcon and it’ll be… falcon size which will look a bit larger since he’s flying and a tad closer to the camera.

Q: I hope there will be an MTX skin to change the falcon to a pigeon.

A: We have so many falcon MTX plans. Yeah, we have a ton of great MTX concept art that we’ll start putting more resources towards as we get closer to launch. Right now we need to focus all resources to making the core game as good as possible.

Q: Any plans on some sort of ‘‘day only mode’’? I hate dark places. It’s hard to see.

A: Haha it’s a cool idea but we don’t have any plans for zone look toggles.

Q: Is there any chance of getting more payment method’s like PayPal instead only credit card?

A: We’re actually in progress of re-adding PayPal to the storefront.

Q: Are you guys looking at affixes that act such as passive skills that we can add to items? Example: Increase Projectile Speed / Increased AOE / Increased proc chance, etc.

A: It would have to be specific to skills and we do that with the class specific affixes on body armor and helmets.

Q: Is there a reason there isn’t much throwing support in either of the Rogue trees? There are a bunch of throwing skills but one tree is mostly melee focused and the other bow focused.

A: Falconer is planned to support throwing builds.

Q: Is there plans to change how stun/freeze works against monsters? Right now it’s possible to permanently freeze and stun bosses/ enemies while you can only fear enemies once.

A: I think it’s concentrated to a few skills and skill interactions rather than a global problem. It’s something we’ll have to look at soon so you can’t just permanently freeze bosses.

Q: Someone remind me, there’s no resistances like PoE where you can get negative resists right?

A: You can indeed go into negative resistances using shred ailments, just like the enemy.

Q: Well reflect in its current state, specifically for minion builds, the recent nerf to it over the months really killed the builds for it. It should be further expanded upon to be viable if you want to just build as a minion heal bot and still have your minions do decent reflect damage as a nice play style.

A: Yup, and that was because it was really OP for minions. I’m sure we’re going to look at it more in the future.

Q: How close do you feel wolf AI is to an AI you would roll out to other minions? I feel like it’s a great starting point but still needs some love.

A: It is for sure better than other minion AI. But it’s likely not totally finished yet.

Q: I would love to see updated tooltips on passives skills (or items) that relate to triggering skills, so it notes if it uses the skill tree of the skill or not. It’s one of the biggest hurdles for creating your own builds atm.

A: If it is a skill you trigger, it’s safe to assume the tree is used. But if a minion casts a skill with a similar name to a skill you can cast, it won’t use the tree. We do plan to change those minion nodes so the names aren’t the same.

Q: Do you guys ever communicate with GGG even if it’s just for banter?

A: Haha yea we do. Chris and Jonathan are awesome guys. They’ve even helped answer questions we’ve had as a growing ARPG. A lot of respect for GGG

Q: When is full release again?

A: When it’s ready.

Q: Greetings. Do you plan on adding the game to GeForce Now?

A: I just did testing for it last week! Hopefully coming soon.

Q: Is visual clarity on the screen a high priority for you guys?

A: There are definitely some VFX that are too noisy or last too long as well. We’re iterating on those especially as we’re moving forward with multiplayer.

Q: Voice acting?

A: Voice acting is being added over time for sure.

Q: When you set out to make the numbers of everything how do you start so it scales up into endgame and build depth? For instance, Richard Garfield basically designed MTG around the rule of 1 mana = 3 dmg.

A: We have relative weights like that, but as you can see even in MTG, that system is only a baseline ruleset. It gets difficult to maintain when you want to add more creative mechanics.

Q: Can we confirm that it will not be like PoE where you have to go to a third party system and then shake hands in person? PoE trade can be extremely frustrating.

A: The goal is to not ever have to leave the game client… and not to spoil the economy with too much easy to acquire, very good gear.

5 Likes

Whoever made that Mike primalist is a genius

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Haha, thx. I got the idea from the first dev stream where Mike joked (or not) about being the template for the earliest Primalist character model. So I made it a reality. :grin:

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Nice work, man, that thing is a piece of art. Mike has never looked so beautiful.

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Thanks for the work

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That’s God’s work you’re doing there with all these well transcribed and nicely formatted transcript.

Thank you.

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Wow dude… that some serious effort transcribing all of this… Thanks!

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Haha, thanks very much for the kind words. I’m glad people are finding these useful.

Yeah, you’re telling me. Its certainly been a humbling experience, to say the least. At first I was like, ‘oh this will be easy…shouldn’t take too long’. How wrong I was. :laughing:

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